Dynamical studies of gratings formed in polymer-dispersed liquid crystal films

The use of polymer-dispersed liquid crystal films to fabricate gratings was demonstrated. The written gratings are permanent, but are electrically switchable. In this article, we report the results obtained from the dynamical studies of gratings formed in polymer-dispersed liquid crystal films having various liquid crystal-polymer mixing ratios. The results showed that during the initial phases of formation, a thermal grating effect dominated. Later, it was offset or quenched by the photopolymerization effect which eventually dominated and determined the characteristics of the final grating.